George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

For reasons somewhat similar to those that have been outlined by Senator Evans on behalf of the government, the opposition does not feel able to support the Greens amendments. If I can detain the chamber for a moment, it should always be remembered, when dealing with legislation of this kind, that the spent conviction regime is itself an exception to the general principle that a conviction, once recorded, remains a matter of public record. My friend Senator Bernardi was observing to me just before that, in his home state of South Australia, there is in fact no such spent conviction regime. A spent conviction regime already creates, if you like, an indulgence or a concession to individuals who have committed offences. But society takes the view that, after a period of years has elapsed and if the offence is lower down the scale, that public record should be expunged.

What this legislation seeks to do is create an exception to that exception—in other words, to allow the position to revert to the way it would have been had the exception not been created in the first place to a particular class of case, and that class of case is where, because of the appropriately heightened sensitivity that society has in relation to sexual offences against children, it is appropriate that a person who might otherwise be subject to the spent offences regime should not, in the limited circumstances ordained by this bill, attract that indulgence. For example, if such a person were to apply to work in and around children, it is appropriate that an employer should be able to apply to a monitor and receive a check on that person. As I said in my contribution on the second reading, only a yes/no answer comes back as to whether there has been a relevant conviction recorded. That information is in itself challengeable by the person in relation to whom the information is sought.

The reason the opposition do not feel able to support the Greens amendments is that we think they unbalance the various balances that have been built into this legislation. Of the various interests that need to be protected, the legitimate interest of a person who is ordinarily subject to the spent offences regime in the protection of their privacy, and being able to take advantage of legislation which has been passed for their benefit so that they can get on with their lives years after the offence has been recorded, is one social value that needs to be respected. On the other hand, the interests of children who might potentially be exposed to a greater level of risk than society regards as acceptable by being exposed to a person whose past conduct might give rise to an apprehension of such risk are, of course, in the opposition’s view—I think we share this view with the government—a greater value. And then, apart from the interests of the children themselves, there is society’s overall concern to ensure that there is a suitable protective regime for children overall.

So, Senator Ludlam, by seeking to rebalance—or tilt the balance, as it were, if I may say so, with respect—away from the protection of the child and back towards the protection of the privacy of the person who is otherwise the beneficiary of the spent offences regime, we think that your amendments take the wrong approach and fail to acknowledge that, as I said at the start of these remarks, the spent offences regime is itself an exception to the ordinary rule that an offence, once recorded, remains a matter of public record. For those reasons, the opposition will not be supporting the Greens amendments.